Pete Carroll was with the Jets for one season, missing the playoffs. He was with New England for two seasons and made the playoffs only once.

Pete Carroll has a competitive mind and expects his players to compete every day.

Think about this. He spent three seasons with two teams, only making the playoffs once. He's spent three seasons with the Hawks and made the playoffs not once, but twice. Mind you, some of this credit goes to the GM he hired, John Schneider to rebuild the team.

I've heard it said that John Schneider picks out the players he likes, sends their names to Carroll and Carroll makes the final call. Carroll is our executive vice president I believe.

I've been thinking. Why didn't Carroll have this success that he has so far that he could've had in New York and New England? I guess it could be since Carroll is our Executive VP and chose a new GM with the help of our former CEO, Tod Leiweke, who also hired Carroll and Carroll did not hire the GM in New York and New England. Carroll picked the right GM to help create a competitive and a future winning organization.

There are a couple of reasons why he didn't have the same success in his first two head-coaching stints. One is that he never had the support of the front office in choosing player personnel. That's why he said he would never come back to the NFL unless he had control over that, which he got with the Seahawks.

The second reason is simply that he didn't have his philosophy set in stone. He got that taken care of the year between the Patriots and USC.

The human brain develops myelin, an insulating material for synapses, whenever an activity stresses the mind to the point where it decides it needs to be stronger for the future. Adding myelin is like adding muscle tissue onto your muscles but instead with synapses in the brain. As a person gains more myelin for certain synapses, he/she will be able to think faster and with greater amounts of information. Pete Carroll didn't do well in NE and NY because his mind hadn't developed the ability to do well as an NFL head coach. He had to learn how to be what he is today. Failing in NE and NY made it a biological necessity to develop more head coaching myelin and USC offered him an opportunity to further build up his mental prowess.

In short, PC was an awful head coach in NE and NY because he really was an awful head coach, but being an awful head coach is a mandatory part of the learning process for becoming a good head coach, which we now get to experience basically expense free thanks to NE, NY, and USC biting the bullet on PC's learning curve.

He won the same amount of games his first three years in NYJ and NE as he did in Seattle FWIW. I think his previous lack of success as a head coach is overstated. He never fielded an awful team. That being said, it does feel like he has it all put together now (and at USC) in a way that he didnt before.

Robert Kraft, owner of the Patriots, specifically said in an interview a couple years ago that he realized years later he made a mistake in keeping Carroll on a leash, and not letting him have more of a free rein with things.

The human brain develops myelin, an insulating material for synapses, whenever an activity stresses the mind to the point where it decides it needs to be stronger for the future. Adding myelin is like adding muscle tissue onto your muscles but instead with synapses in the brain. As a person gains more myelin for certain synapses, he/she will be able to think faster and with greater amounts of information. Pete Carroll didn't do well in NE and NY because his mind hadn't developed the ability to do well as an NFL head coach. He had to learn how to be what he is today. Failing in NE and NY made it a biological necessity to develop more head coaching myelin and USC offered him an opportunity to further build up his mental prowess.

In short, PC was an awful head coach in NE and NY because he really was an awful head coach, but being an awful head coach is a mandatory part of the learning process for becoming a good head coach, which we now get to experience basically expense free thanks to NE, NY, and USC biting the bullet on PC's learning curve.

I want to hire you to be my coach to find a new employer. I am unhappy where I work. Can you help me in the interview process? PM me. I'm serious.

Mick063 wrote:People don't remain static. They improve or they get worse, but rarely do they remain the same.

Perhaps the cumulative experience is worth something? Perhaps he learned from mistakes?

Nah . . . I'm going with the myelin.

The irony here is that myelin is cumulative experience, learning from mistakes, improvement, getting worse, etc. All those things Mick mentions are concepts we use to form muscle memory but muscle memory isn't a literal thing. It's just what we're learned to call the product of what myelin does. Do you think PC has good muscle memory for coaching and team building? If you guys answer yes, then you're really complimenting the man's myelin. If you disagree, I bet you're underestimating how big of a role muscle memory plays in human nature.

Blitzer88 wrote:He wasn't given nearly the support he has now in terms of allowing him to get the people he wanted/desired as well as wasn't really given the chance to run the program the way he really wanted too.

I doubt that he would have done anything of note if he had that support outright. If it was just a matter of support and he was aware of this, he wouldn't have taken a coaching gig where he didn't have autonomy to begin with. He learned he needed that autonomy from falling short in NE and he then became the head coach and organizational figurehead we've been fortunate to have as a result of that experience and his time honing his style at USC.

I remember a quote from Pete around the time he was hired here. He said (paraphrasing): "If I ever get another shot in the NFL, I don't care what happens, I'm going to do things MY way." Based on that, it sounds like Pete had to deal with some front office obstruction at his previous stints.

RolandDeschain wrote:Robert Kraft, owner of the Patriots, specifically said in an interview a couple years ago that he realized years later he made a mistake in keeping Carroll on a leash, and not letting him have more of a free rein with things.

The best owners are generally the owners that give free rein to their Head Coaches.

Pete is a very conservative coach and I think he does better also when he cuts his offense loose. First half of last years season, he kept Wilson in restricted offense. When he finally let Wilson play, that's when good things happened.

Same with the defense. More aggression and a bit more high risk blitzes might just do wonders for an already formidable defense.

There are a couple of reasons why he didn't have the same success in his first two head-coaching stints. One is that he never had the support of the front office in choosing player personnel. That's why he said he would never come back to the NFL unless he had control over that, which he got with the Seahawks.

The second reason is simply that he didn't have his philosophy set in stone. He got that taken care of the year between the Patriots and USC.

This is exactly it.

He realized head coaching was about having a vision and scheme for the entire team and then getting the personnel to match.

This is also the biggest difference to this regime and the previous one.

Holmgren had an offensive scheme but no ideas for defense. Because of this, Ruskell was given too much power to determine defensive personnel and this caused a dissonance between himself and Holmgren in player selection. Moreover, Ruskell was not a coach and had no idea how to fit players into a scheme which is by far the most important thing when picking players. So the team went downhill.

You see this level of demise everywhere - think of every bad team in the NFL over the medium to long term and, first and foremost, you will have dissonance between the GM and head coaching staff. If you look at the consistently good teams - you tend to find the opposite.

Pete Carroll has the latter now and the former in his previous two stints.

I'm reading his book and he outlines all of thisWin forever isn't rah rah at allHe wrote his manifesto, changed the way things were done and first implemented it at uscWe will be battling for playoffs or homefield advantage alwaysThats also why teams that draft like us won't be able to instill a desire to win throughout the entire organization like we canRead the book

I'm reading his book and he outlines all of thisWin forever isn't rah rah at allHe wrote his manifesto, changed the way things were done and first implemented it at uscWe will be battling for playoffs or homefield advantage alwaysThats also why teams that draft like us won't be able to instill a desire to win throughout the entire organization like we canRead the book

The human brain develops myelin, an insulating material for synapses, whenever an activity stresses the mind to the point where it decides it needs to be stronger for the future. Adding myelin is like adding muscle tissue onto your muscles but instead with synapses in the brain. As a person gains more myelin for certain synapses, he/she will be able to think faster and with greater amounts of information. Pete Carroll didn't do well in NE and NY because his mind hadn't developed the ability to do well as an NFL head coach. He had to learn how to be what he is today. Failing in NE and NY made it a biological necessity to develop more head coaching myelin and USC offered him an opportunity to further build up his mental prowess.

In short, PC was an awful head coach in NE and NY because he really was an awful head coach, but being an awful head coach is a mandatory part of the learning process for becoming a good head coach, which we now get to experience basically expense free thanks to NE, NY, and USC biting the bullet on PC's learning curve.

PC was never an Awful head coach. How can you be an awful head coach when A) you have a winning record - 33-31, in four years you win 1 division title and make 2 playoff appearances (something the Browns, Dolphins, ect haven't been able to achieve). That's hardly the resume of an "awful" HC. Was he great? No, but he wasn't nearly as bad as what some would have you to beleive. As mentioned by others, it wasn't until the USC time did PC really hone his coaching style and philosophy. As a result he learned a lot and is a much better coach and administrator than he was a decade and a half ago.

seahawksTopGear wrote:I disagree. PC did an amazing rebuild on the defensive side of the Patriots team and offensive minded Coach like B rode it to a superbowl when things came together a couple of years later.

The fact that even in this forum pc does not get the respect he deserves saddens me.

seahawksTopGear wrote:I disagree. PC did an amazing rebuild on the defensive side of the Patriots team and offensive minded Coach like B rode it to a superbowl when things came together a couple of years later.

The fact that even in this forum pc does not get the respect he deserves saddens me.

seahawksTopGear wrote:I disagree. PC did an amazing rebuild on the defensive side of the Patriots team and offensive minded Coach like B rode it to a superbowl when things came together a couple of years later.

The fact that even in this forum pc does not get the respect he deserves saddens me.

LOL @ Belichick being an offensive minded coach...

Well, he was an offensive position coach in the mid-70's until he was moved to the defensive side of the ball for the rest of his coaching life before the head coaching gigs.

seahawksTopGear wrote:I disagree. PC did an amazing rebuild on the defensive side of the Patriots team and offensive minded Coach like B rode it to a superbowl when things came together a couple of years later.

The fact that even in this forum pc does not get the respect he deserves saddens me.

LOL @ Belichick being an offensive minded coach...

Dang you CAN I was getting giddy ready to pounce on that.

FWIW, Charlie Weis LOL'd too after he put down the cheesesteak he was working on...

seahawksTopGear wrote:I disagree. PC did an amazing rebuild on the defensive side of the Patriots team and offensive minded Coach like B rode it to a superbowl when things came together a couple of years later.

The fact that even in this forum pc does not get the respect he deserves saddens me.

LOL @ Belichick being an offensive minded coach...

Well, he was an offensive position coach in the mid-70's until he was moved to the defensive side of the ball for the rest of his coaching life before the head coaching gigs.

Yes, because he is equally well known for coaching tight ends for two years in the 70's as he is for being the D coordinator of the Giants 2 super bowl teams in the 80's. Cha ryte...

DavidSeven wrote:The Patriots went 5-11 in Belichick's first year after Carroll (who had them at 8-8). Then Tom Brady happened, and the rest is history.

Yup. Not to pick on Top Gear, but his post reeks of blind homerism. Pete's teams in NY and NE had their problems, but he was powerless to do anything about them personnel wise. Pete got a slightly worse deal in NE than Denis Erickson got here. But everyone involved in all those deals seems to have done alright for themselves...

jlwaters1 wrote:PC was never an Awful head coach. How can you be an awful head coach when A) you have a winning record - 33-31, in four years you win 1 division title and make 2 playoff appearances (something the Browns, Dolphins, ect haven't been able to achieve). That's hardly the resume of an "awful" HC. Was he great? No, but he wasn't nearly as bad as what some would have you to beleive. As mentioned by others, it wasn't until the USC time did PC really hone his coaching style and philosophy. As a result he learned a lot and is a much better coach and administrator than he was a decade and a half ago.

It all depends on what we're saying the word awful is relative to. When I say awful, I mean he was awful compared to his potential and I'm defining his potential as partly what he did at USC and mostly what he's doing here right now. I make no apologies for his lack of success in previous gigs because the reasons he was awful, not great, or whatever we feel obligated to call it are serving as parts of the reasons and motivations that have added to the expertise of his we're all benefiting from now. This isn't an opinion. This is the human nature of learning any skill whether it's ping pong, neurosurgery, flipping burgers, or head-coaching in the NFL. He was bad but being bad is just an early part of the process of becoming good.

There's a possibility that he had learned to be a good/great NFL head coach earlier in his coaching career and his less than ideal results in NE and NY were mostly the result of faults of what people like Kraft had done, but I doubt this is the case. Consider that he's mentioned struggles on his end during those stints in interviews and the like about his book, Win Forever, when it came out. I assume that if he mentioned this experience in his interviews that it will also have been something covered in his book. If someone who has read his book can attest to this, then it's safe to say that, like a lot of newer head coaches, PC just wasn't a good/great one until he put enough time into the trial and error necessary to fulfill the position. The simple answer would then be: PC didn't do as well with NY and NE as SEA mostly because he hadn't practiced being a HC enough yet.

jlwaters1 wrote:PC was never an Awful head coach. How can you be an awful head coach when A) you have a winning record - 33-31, in four years you win 1 division title and make 2 playoff appearances (something the Browns, Dolphins, ect haven't been able to achieve). That's hardly the resume of an "awful" HC. Was he great? No, but he wasn't nearly as bad as what some would have you to beleive. As mentioned by others, it wasn't until the USC time did PC really hone his coaching style and philosophy. As a result he learned a lot and is a much better coach and administrator than he was a decade and a half ago.

It all depends on what we're saying the word awful is relative to. When I say awful, I mean he was awful compared to his potential and I'm defining his potential as partly what he did at USC and mostly what he's doing here right now.

First three years in NY/NE: 25-23, two playoff appearances.First three years in SEA: 25-23, two playoff appearances.

I agree he's a better coach now than before, but again, he was never an "awful" or "terrible" head coach, even if you're comparing his previous tenures to what he's doing now.

I'm talking about one of the most fascinating recent discoveries into human nature and you guys want to nit pick me on the semantics of a single word!

W/L records are perhaps the single most subjective statistic in football (which is unbelievably ironic given their importance). Look at the comparison you're making. One of those 25-23 records is from a middling team that regressed. The other 25-23 record is from a rebuilding squad coming off a fire-sale that's now contending to be one of the top teams in the conference. Their records say we are equal but we know this isn't the case. In other words, bad coaches can go 25-23 while good coaches can also go 25-23. The coach we're referring to can also be, and often is, the same person. This is because of the nature in which people learn and the complete and absolute subjectivity of statistics based on absolute outcomes and small sample sizes (which is exactly what NFL W/L records are).

travlinhawk wrote:Back then Pete was ready for the NFL... the NFL was not ready for Pete. Worked out for us.

So It's a good thing then that Robert Kraft fired Carroll then.

Pretty sure Pete was happy to dominate college football and be the king of L.A. for a decade, and we're certainly happy to have him now. Patriots don't have much to complain about either. So yeah, in this case, it worked out for everyone.

2) one of those playoffs seasons was with a 7-9 team. I know they win the playoff game but do you consider that a successful regular season?

3) One-two injuries on key players and the season goes in the tanks sometimes or at least you lose one game that was hugely important for borderline playoff teams

4) PC is on the record saying he spent a lot of time thinking what he would do different in the NFL and that he is now doing that...

Yeah I do. Seattle had easily from top to bottom a Top 5 worst rosters in the NFL that year. It was a miracle they won 7 games that year, let alone knocking off the defending SB Champs in the playoffs.

After he was fired by the New England Patriots, Carroll read a book by former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden which heavily influenced how he would run his future program at USC: emulating Wooden, Carroll decided to engineer his program in the way that best exemplified his personal philosophy. He decided his philosophy was best summarized as "I'm a competitor".

PC wasn't always a good head coach. His failures in NY and NE played a huge role in his development into the coach he is today. Some of you won't take my paraphrasing of an objective truth about the human nature of developing expertise for it, but maybe you'll take Pete's word for it!

BirdsCommaAngry wrote:After he was fired by the New England Patriots, Carroll read a book by former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden which heavily influenced how he would run his future program at USC: emulating Wooden, Carroll decided to engineer his program in the way that best exemplified his personal philosophy. He decided his philosophy was best summarized as "I'm a competitor".

PC wasn't always a good head coach. His failures in NY and NE played a huge role in his development into the coach he is today. Some of you won't take my paraphrasing of an objective truth about the human nature of developing expertise for it, but maybe you'll take Pete's word for it!

He was an excellent position coach and DC. He was a so-so head coach who had great potential but didn't really get a chance to develop it while with those two teams.

Prior to this year's draft, he had the same amount of time in NE as he has had here. He had a chance and on a fairly well-built team from Parcells no less. Sure, he didn't have the control we've come to associate with his success back then but there are also coaches, like Holmgren, who have fallen short when wearing both hats. It's still uncertain that PC would have been more or less successful in NE had he had the control he had at USC because that's a subject we can only offer speculation about. What we do know is after being fired by NE, PC made some changes to his philosophy based on influences from John Wooden and those changes became the focal points of his successful teams and organizations at USC and here. To some this might just be a correlation but to me it's an embodiment of human nature playing itself out. Expertise is built more quickly from learning via failing, stumbling, coming up short, and a bunch of other adjectives and phrases I would associate with PCs coaching tenure at NE.

Was PC a so-so head coach before USC because he didn't get the chance or did he not get the chance because before USC he was a so-so head coach? It's the latter and it's been instrumental in him becoming a national champion and successfully returning to the NFL.